At T.F. O’Brien Cooling & Heating, we like the idea of empowering our customers. So if your furnace is on the fritz, we’ll probably ask you to follow some furnace troubleshooting tips before making a service call.
So find your owner’s manual and grab a flashlight. We’ll make a great team as we get to the bottom of what’s ailing your furnace:
- Ensure that your furnace is on by setting the thermostat to the “heat” function. No sense scheduling a service call simply because the furnace wasn’t turned on.
- If your furnace is on but refuses to fire up, turn up the temperature a few degrees to see if it kicks into gear.
- Inspect the fuse at the circuit breaker. Replace it if necessary.
- If the furnace has a pilot light, check that it’s still on. If it isn’t, relight it. The flame, by the way, should be bright blue. A yellow flame is a sign of dirty burners, which must be professionally cleaned.
- Look for flakes of rust near your furnace, which can fall on the burners and interfere with the gas flow. This condition also should be addressed by a professional technician.
- Check the filter by removing it and then shining your flashlight behind it. If no light shines through, the filter is dirty and should be replaced. Dirty filters can cripple a furnace, causing it to shut down. Another tell-tale sign of a dirty filter: the smell of dust in your home as soon as the furnace fires up.
- Conduct a room-by-room check of your home’s heat registers to make sure they’re not blocked by furniture or other objects
If your furnace is on the fritz and emitting strange noises – especially low and deep rumbling sounds or high-pitched squealing – the dirty or maladjusted burners are most likely sending a cry for help.
Answer their cry by calling T.F. O’Brien Cooing & Heating. With your good troubleshooting measures complete, we’ll be proud to be your wingman to restore your furnace to great working order. We serve Long Island homeowners.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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